Makhuba Kasymova of Uzbekistan

In 1998, Makhuba Kasymova was sentenced to five years in prison, but because of the efforts of human activists around the world who adopted her as an Amnesty International Political Prisoner, she was released after serving 18 months of her sentence.

She is full of gratitude towards all those who worked for her:

…without the help of international human rights organizations, I would not have been released. My family received a lot of letters. I got to hear about them when the family came to visit, and when I was released I got a pack of 40 letters of the guards, it was up to and including children’s drawings there. Before that, they had not let me get a single letter.

The Global Importune letter signing group began sending letters of concern on behalf of Makhuba Kasymova to officials in the government of Uzbekistan sometime around July 2000.

She was released on December 15, 2000.

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